Size Matters are one of my Favorite Cover Bands, with two vocalists, brilliant keyboards, and great everything else.
They play songs from the 80’s and elsewhere, and everything is done to perfection.
They also have awesome stage presence and are a great band to photograph.
One Fourteen is a great band venue in Mentone, with reasonable lighting and a good crowd of well to do Melbourne bayside residents.
I have been looking forward to doing my first shoot there with the Sony A-77 camera, but found that the pictures were not as light and bright as previous photos I had done with the A-55 of another band called “Takin’ Cover”.
The main reason for this is that Takin Cover bring their own additional lighting to their shows, and this really makes a difference to the brightness and clarity of the resulting photos.
A full Flickr Gallery of Photos of Size Matters can be viewed here:
Flickr Photo Gallery of Size Matters at One Fourteen
Further information about Size Matters can be found at their Facebook Page:
EQUIPMENT:
Sony Alpha A-77
Tamron 24-70mm F2.8
Tamron 17-50mm F2.8
Sony HVL-FM43 Flash
Gary Fong Gamma Flash Diffuser
For this shoot I took along both of my Tamron lenses to do a comparison of picture quality.
For the low light conditions, the 24-70mm lens which is bigger and much more expensive than the 17-50mm lens, only produced photos that were perhaps 10 to 15% better in quality.
This just proves again what great bang for buck the Tamron 17-50mm lens provides.
Band shots were done with no flash, in Manual at ISO 1600, Apertures between 2.8 and 3.2, and shutter speeds of 1/60th to 1/125.
Party People shots were also done at ISO 1600, as well as ISO 1250, and this meant that the band was quite visible in the background.
The Gamma Diffuser seems to do a good job of focussing the light onto the people, without overly lighting up the surrounding background, and this was a pleasing result.
Due to its flat profile, it is very easy to carry in a cargo pants pocket, and move around the venue with once connected to the flash. The velcro fastening system is great and there is no chance of the diffuser coming off the flash.
This diffuser is only $30 to buy on the Internet, but then cost another $30 in postage and handling.
The Gary Fong Gamma Diffuser is made especially for the Sony A-77, as demonstrated in this video by its creator: Gary Fong.
(Note that there are similar “Blade” / “Cheese-Grater” diffusers available for non Sony cameras as well).
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Enjoy,
Passy
